Author Comments:

Yep, I'm resorting to THIS again. Sorry guys, but I really, REALLY burned myself out getting that big 'ol Conventional Wisdom update finished, and ended up sleeping through when I would normally have been working on today's comic. So here's a rough draft, the finished version will be up later. And I DO have a Voting Incentive for today drawn and scanned, so that'll go up when the finished page does.

Anyway, I've worked out the dialog for the next few pages enough to know how much of Mariska's backstory ISN'T going to be mentioned, so I'll just go ahead and fill in some blanks right here. I've mentioned elsewhere that Nitpickers-in-training (especially very young ones) serve a sort of apprenticeship by accompanying a trained Nitpicker in the field. Normally, this is a one-on-one arrangement, but Ichabod's was a little unusual. His Nitpicking mentor was actually married to another Nitpicker, and they worked as a duo. While Ichabod was assigned to one of the couple, Mariska was assigned to the other, and she's basically been his kid sister ever since (I've got a suspicion that he doesn't have any biological siblings, or at least none he has a relationship with)

User Comments:

@Layla: Look, Layla, Ichabod has a not-actually-related younger "sibling" just like you do! Isn't it great how you and Ichabod have so much in common & are so much alike? :D
*Ed8 runs and hides very far away from Layla*

Also, interesting thing to note: Ichabod's girlfriend is described as "elusive" by one of his good friends, who has also met her.
This could mean that it's apparently not that we haven't seen her because we've only actually been on the ship for a short time.

@ Seros: She's likely "elusive" due to never spending extensive amounts of time with Ichabod and not bringing him up in ways that people question her bringing him up. Like someone important in the Zichelidan Emperium, which, apparently, would send a fleet of warships to Ichabod "in a heatbeat" and which Ichabod doesn't want Stilez to possibly mess up for him (from page 757, or comic #957, names you dont know). Basically, I suspect that Ichabod's Girlfriend is either something close to an Empress or Significantly Ranked General in the Zichelidan Emperium, and the reason he doesn't want call them in for Stilez is because the damage Stilez could create could damage Ichabod's relationship with his girlfriend. Additionally, Ichabod's Girlfriend having an actually important position in a significant galatic power would explain why they're rarely seen together.

@ Incentive: It happened during their training years, they got one day a week off their Nitpicker Training, during which they would regularly run off to find, and then "solve" a local mystery. What they discover would then often turn into a minor piece of an issue their teacher's were working on, so if it was a television series, a recurring gag would be the show ending with their teacher's going something like "Of course! That's what was missing with *blank*!" And then solving their customer's problem. Or, if not solving it, explaining something that happened during the episode that wasn't understood before, such as water "spontaneously" catching on fire (and luckily providing the pair with light), due to what they had discovered.

And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you nitpicking kids!
.
Ichabod and Mariska never did solve the mystery of why the villains always said the exact same thing whenever they were caught....

So if they had a Scooby gang, Ichabod was clearly Velma - he's got the glasses, the exact same hair color and orange clothing color scheme, and totally a know-it-all. Mariska clearly played the role of Fred since he was actually useful (as opposed to Daphne, who was just a ditz who didn't really do much). They still need two other human members, though. And a talking Xal-Gox with a speech impediment.

@Darius: Surely someone who has spent as much time aboard the same ship as Vengeance as Trigger has would have his creepiness threshold reset to such a high level that a little thing like a few extra eyeballs wouldn't even bother him. Poor little Alphonse, on the other hand, might have a heart attack. (Fortunately Tabitha could just revivify him...again)

@Seros & Darius: Ichabod's girlfriend is clearly...A NINJA! (They're very elusive. She may have already been in the strip: Any time Blitz just left a blank white background behind the characters, she might have been there! She could be in the background of this very strip and we wouldn't know it!)

@ Ed8: Nah, that's not how that works. Instead, Vengeance just becomes a creepiness blind spot, aka something you either ignore, avoid or otherwise don't pay attention to how creepy it is. Everything else can still easily be strange, weird and creepy. Besides, I wasn't overly worried about their creepiness... unless some of them try to creepily hit on Trigger. No, I was worried about Trigger finding them outright scary, because someone Ichabod calls "creepy" with extra eyes in their hair is someone I would consider scary, and which I suspect Trigger would consider outright terrifying.

Even so, regardless, I only said I wanted to meet them - Trigger doesn't have to. We could see them in a vote incentive (Tabitha dresses up creepy-eye-girls!), or a flashback sequence, or something like that. Then Trigger doesn't have to worry.

Tsk, Tsk. First Layla and now Mariska implying there is something odd about a perfectly normal attraction to catgirls. When will all this horrible Nekophobia end? We all know it's obviously just JEALOUSY from girls who really wish they were catgirls themselves! Clearly the fact that *everyone* except Mariska is betting on Ichabod caving in *proves* that they all recognize the irresistability of catgirls! And even Mariska, who knows Ichabod has too much integrity to betray his Zilchedan Ninja General girlfriend, still feels it necessary to admonish him not to anyway! Because she knows the power of the temptation of a catgirl. Especially Stilez. ;)